Can I get some input on a school suggesting that my kindergartner have a neuropsychological evaluation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have other kids op? I feel like I saw my child’s issues more clearly when I had the experience of raising another child.

For better or worse, we do not. Which is one of the reasons I'm seeking input here -- I legitimately have no idea. Which is why, as stated above, I do value the school's recommendation -- they should be experts in determining what normal 6-year old behavior is, while I'm about as inexperienced as you could be at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son’s preschool did the same thing to me - pressured me to get a neuropsych and an appointment with a very expensive private testing company. My son is quirky and had some issues that we were already addressing privately. I didn’t feel the need to shell out $3 K for a full on evaluation. I chose to ignore the preschool’s advice. Fast forward to middle school - my son is AAP, making straight As and the teacher’s love him. He also has a good set of nice friends. He’s outgrown some of his issues.

My take is, if your child doesn’t fit the mold, they always think it’s a “problem” when it may not be. Go with your gut.

My experience with private school is there is an often a difference between what is normal/typical and what they want in their classroom. I think you are going to have to decide if you want to play by their rules or if you want to leave. They can select a class of quiet studious children and decide your child’s behavior is not in line with what they want. Once they have decided your child is a problem you will be expected to either fix them or leave. I would expect escalation if you don’t make some show of “fixing” your child (in this case doing evaluation). You may just decide to leave. My greatest regret is not understanding when my child’s school was DONE with them and they made DC miserable to force us to pull them.

My child was eventually diagnosed with ADHD and I don’t mind that they shared their concerns with us. I truly wish they had just said hey we get to pick who we want and we don’t want your kid. Time to go. Same child has done well in public even before medication but now is doing really great.

[Anonymous]

I would keep an eye on the shape copying. That could mean dysgraphia which causes challenges, esp in middle & high school note taking — at least it did for our DS. It wasn’t on my radar so thought I’d mention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have other kids op? I feel like I saw my child’s issues more clearly when I had the experience of raising another child.

For better or worse, we do not. Which is one of the reasons I'm seeking input here -- I legitimately have no idea. Which is why, as stated above, I do value the school's recommendation -- they should be experts in determining what normal 6-year old behavior is, while I'm about as inexperienced as you could be at it.

So that info tips me further into thinking you should go forward with the eval. Not because you are inexperienced—you are the expert on your kid—but because it’s very likely that you are scaffolding his home environment more than you consciously realize, to meet his needs / prevent meltdowns / support him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is he a six year old in kindergarten? Is he one of the older kids in the class? Is this his first school experience? His first group experience?
As someone who has done psych testing, and who has also worked in a variety of school settings, a referral for neuro-psych testing would NOT be where I’d start for assessment and referrals given what you’ve described.

He turned 6 in October, so he's one of the older kids. Has done preschool since age 2, but last year 4-days/week half-day -- this is his first year of 5 days per week and his first year of full days.

If neuropsych is not where you'd start for this, mind sharing where you would start? OT? Developmental pediatrician? Psychologist?

You can’t start with a “neuropsych” because they take months/years to get and thousands of dollars, and also do not actually provide any therapy or even necessarily inform the intervention. The fact that the teacher suggested it is to me a pretty big tell that they are inexperienced. It’s like ordering a CT scan for a tension headache.

You start with the challenges you see that interfere the most with functioning. That means an OT evaluation, which is generally easy to schedule and often covered by insurance.

As for the crying it’s hard to tell. Crying is annoying to adults but its not that disruptive. I would try ignoring it at home and seeing what happens. Whenever he gives a sign of expressing his frustration verbally instead or asking for help you praise the heck out of him. You’re trying to help him develop alternative ways to respond to frustration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[snip]My greatest regret is not understanding when my child’s school was DONE with them and they made DC miserable to force us to pull them.

[snip]

OP here -- what finally tipped you off that your child's school was DONE with them?

I feel like I'm not at that point yet. Since we get the daily progress reports, I feel like if they started being negative every day, maybe I'd be at that point. But his daily reports are still positive far more often than not. So I think we're still in the realm of "if you do what we ask, we will continue to work with you."

I just don't want the school to start treating my son badly. He's actually a very positive, optimistic, enthusiastic student and loves being at school. I don't want them to squelch that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would keep an eye on the shape copying. That could mean dysgraphia which causes challenges, esp in middle & high school note taking — at least it did for our DS. It wasn’t on my radar so thought I’d mention.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just learned about dysgraphia a few days ago and agree it could be a concern here. I had never even heard of it until I started googling things earlier this week.

[Anonymous]

Are you going to answer if this is private or public school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you going to answer if this is private or public school?

She did. It’s a private school.

OP I don’t understand your resistance and trying to look for reasons not to believe the teachers.

My 3 kids are all in private school and if a teacher suggested to seek some sort of evaluation, I would right away.
My youngest is 4.5 and in PK. Our preschool as a L&S and OT as well as other experts on site. I was the one who requested a speech evaluation last year and the teachers went along with it. My son was average in the evaluation, but I am doing speech therapy nonetheless and he is making so much progress.
Maybe the teachers are wrong or maybe they aren’t, but why can’t you get an evaluation? You can always decide to do nothing about it.

Perhaps there is something I am missing, but what is the issue here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would keep an eye on the shape copying. That could mean dysgraphia which causes challenges, esp in middle & high school note taking — at least it did for our DS. It wasn’t on my radar so thought I’d mention.

Agree. This is the only thing of what you mentioned seems abnormal. But this doesn’t need a full neuropsych eval. Perhaps seek out services through whatever county you live in. They should be able to give him a reading/writing evaluation and go from there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is he a six year old in kindergarten? Is he one of the older kids in the class? Is this his first school experience? His first group experience?
As someone who has done psych testing, and who has also worked in a variety of school settings, a referral for neuro-psych testing would NOT be where I’d start for assessment and referrals given what you’ve described.

He turned 6 in October, so he's one of the older kids. Has done preschool since age 2, but last year 4-days/week half-day -- this is his first year of 5 days per week and his first year of full days.

If neuropsych is not where you'd start for this, mind sharing where you would start? OT? Developmental pediatrician? Psychologist?

Even if he's at a private school, you can use the public school district for evaluations and potentially support. I'd probably start there - it's free and can give you a general sense of what the next reasonable step would be.

[Anonymous]

From the OP description, DC might have motor delays. Ask school/teacher how child’s fine motor & gross motor compares with rest of class. If they say bottom half, then probably find a pediatric occupational therapy (OTR/L) place and get DC evaluated. If there is an issue, taking DC to see the pediatric OTR/L can help bring motor skills up where they should be.

Insurance usually will cover this sort of thing, but check that the specific pediatric therapy place is in-network.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[snip]My greatest regret is not understanding when my child’s school was DONE with them and they made DC miserable to force us to pull them.

[snip]

OP here -- what finally tipped you off that your child's school was DONE with them?

I feel like I'm not at that point yet. Since we get the daily progress reports, I feel like if they started being negative every day, maybe I'd be at that point. But his daily reports are still positive far more often than not. So I think we're still in the realm of "if you do what we ask, we will continue to work with you."

I just don't want the school to start treating my son badly. He's actually a very positive, optimistic, enthusiastic student and loves being at school. I don't want them to squelch that.

In retrospect though they had made up their minds within a couple months and probably around the first time they communicated with us. As you will find out, if there are issues, it takes time to set up evaluation and remediation (and we threw $$ at everything and private paid so I really doubt we could have moved faster) and they just kept implying we were dragging our feet and our child was this big problem and why had we not had this evaluation within a month etc. We finally sent in an observer who noted that more than once multiple children would be doing something minimally against rules (like talking too much during a group lesson) and my child would be the only one specifically called out and in trouble. The observer told us we needed to get DC out of there right away and that was when I realized how bad things were.

In retrospect my child had stopped enjoying school around the time we first started getting observations despite having been happy and high performing at their previous placement. That’s why I think they decided DC was a bad kid and acted accordingly around that time.

I would really pay attention to how they frame the observations. If they are worried about him as an individual they may be actually concerned. If they frame it as a problem for the classroom they may not give you much time to help him before they decide he has to go. To a certain extent I understand that- who wouldn’t want a class of easy kids and at private you can make that happen. I just wish they had been more upfront about it honestly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:well it will take you 3 years to get a neuropsych exam, so doesn’t seem like a great recommendation.

I’d talk to the school SPED team and ask what the meaning of the recommendation is. They have an affirm duty to start the evaluation process if they suspect a disability.

well that's wildly untrue.

Depends where you live boo

Well this is DC urban moms. And if you can pay, you can get a neurospych in less than 6 months. From at least 4 places that I called as recently as a month ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public or private, jumping to a neuropsych, based on what you've written here, is ridiculous. But I'm assuming this is a private school and they can recommend/ask for anything they want.

But here's the deal: most private schools know very little about typical/atypical development. They mostly have experience with more "advanced" development and then get flustered when there is a deviation from that. There is also a good chance that the person who recommended a "neuropsych evaluation" to you doesn't even really understand what that means.

The good news is that you can probably start with something cheaper if you are concerned and/or want to try to stay at the school. See if you can find a psychologist (doesn't have to be a neuropsychologist) to do a school consult for you. Meet with you, meet with your kid, talk to the teachers, and maybe observe at school. Not cheap, but also likely not $3,000.

Or, probably even cheaper, find an OT who can assess/work with him on fine motor and emotional regulation.

Or, do nothing and start looking for another school. I agree that they may want to counsel you out. Which, frankly, if this is their bar, your child would be better of elsewhere. Good teachers know how to teach all kinds of kids. If someone is getting squirrely because a Kindergartener is crying every few weeks, well, they should find a new job.

I don't think it is jumping at all. The DC is having episodes at school (the ones that are reported) every three weeks and same at home. It's time. My DD had her first around 3 or 4. It wasn't until the 4th neurospsych at 16 that we finally got the first clear picture of what we are dealing with: Aspergers/spectrum/anxiety/ADHD. The prior testers had missed the autism. Yes, we paid a bundle for both kids to be tested but we learned something every time.

Your bar for "episode" is much lower than mine. He is getting upset, crying for a few minutes, then resuming his day. I'd call that being 6.